Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Resolved Just got the rare Mac version of Halo 1 using a torrent. Is this entirely legal?
- Thread starter Red Cube
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Oh sweet! I never did get to play Halo 1 on either Mac or PC, tho played it several times on friends' Xbox.
Can I ask, since you managed to buy this boxed copy somewhere... what does the box look like? I mean, if I wanted to search on eBay or Amazon for the exact same thing, what would I look for? Obviously the boxed copy is NOT going to advertise saying "Mac Universal Binary" on the boxed cover itself, as that is hardly mentioned when someone advertises a game.
And that's where you'd be incorrect. Here's a picture, note the two icons in the upper left corner of the box. One notes that this is the Mac version of the game, the other is for Universal Binary.
Obviously, trying to find the game is easier on fleBay because most of the sellers will post pictures of the item they're selling. You'd have to contact ones on Amazon separately and ask what version it is. Be descriptive with exactly where they can find this information just in case they don't know.
Attachments
Last edited:
Ah that's right! Thanks for clarifying that. I totally forgot about that Mac "Universal" icon, the yin-yang looking one. Ever since OSX moved away from PPC support, it has disappeared from general labeling on Mac software, so I completely forgot about it.
Sorry, guys, but could you stop bumping this topic? I want this topic to die. You know you can always discuss it via PMing, though.
Sorry, guys, but could you stop bumping this topic? I want this topic to die. You know you can always discuss it via PMing, though.
Why?
Suddenly there's useful information on here with photos of the actual box. What does it matter to you if the thread is dead or not?
-SC
Sorry, guys, but could you stop bumping this topic? I want this topic to die. You know you can always discuss it via PMing, though.
Hey, no one's asking you to keep coming back in here.
Wow, seriously? I'd have to look into that. I'm wondering if I'd get better performance with Halo running through WINE vs. MacSoft's infamous port.
Looks like you've got quite a treasure there. From my experience, most of the hard copies of Halo that were out there were for the original PPC version. With PPC Macs a vanishingly small minority now, and 10.6-capable Macs no longer being sold by Apple, I'd imagine that a Halo disc with an Intel-native installer would be in high demand among Mac gaming afficionados.
Uh, do you mean infamous like how rare it is, or the fact that it wasn't optimized well? It ran great for me, and I've played through the whole campaign. The worst lag I got was a little stutter every hour or so. It's a lot better than Valves port of their Source engine games.
I don't think it was any less rare on release than say, any other boxed Mac OS X game of its day, though I do recall something from MacSoft's Peter Tamte remarking about how they lost a lot of sales due to rampant piracy, which may have cut short its shelf life.
I was definitely, however referring to its poor optimization and buginess, even after the significant v2.0 UB release. It's rather telling that I can run UT2K4 on my GMA 950 MacBook with all of the graphical options maxed out in fullscreen and still get good framerates in botmatches. By comparison, Halo was a slideshow unless I'd put it down to 640x480 and turn everything off. My old dual-1.25 Ghz MDD G4/GeForce 4Ti fared only marginally better.
I also have HaloMD, though I prefer the retail version. Sure, the mods for HaloMD are fun and easy to install, but most are for multiplayer, almost none of the servers with players don't use mods and have the same map + gamemode, and it's almost dead. On the other hand, the retail has multiplayer that is still going strong, and it has the full campaign. If all the copies of the mac version weren't rare and expensive, I would actually pay for the game.
First, it would be nice to know what it actually is. It's also really inaccurate to label WINE as being a "horrid technology", as it's been able to achieve a significant amount in terms of game compatibility and performance. A lot of Mac gamers who love to bash WINE have based their experience on the early Cider ports from 2005, but seem to have not actually tried working with WINE since.
Also, if HaloMD is a modified version of the original Mac demo for Halo, I can't see how it could be better than the retail version unless it has support for the full single-player campaign too.
It is better than the retail version (IMO) because it has support for playing multiplayer mods with other players out of the box. The modding tools available that are used by members are native as well. In fact, 99% of the players are on a Mac. (There are even PC players that have the retail version that would wish for having this version). Wine though admittingly has still been useful for the community for certain aspects in the modding scene.
At least one of the servers is not modded last I checked. Players play wherever they want to. It's not dead. Activity just depends on interest.
Note I said it's better in some ways than retail version, but not in all ways. In particular, it doesn't support the full campaign nor is it meant to replace the retail version. But the reason the project exists is because of the inaccessibility of this game.
(I agree though that MD doesn't give as much attention to single player as it could [think new levels])
At least one of the servers is not modded last I checked. Players play wherever they want to. It's not dead. Activity just depends on interest.
Note I said it's better in some ways than retail version, but not in all ways. In particular, it doesn't support the full campaign nor is it meant to replace the retail version. But the reason the project exists is because of the inaccessibility of this game.
(I agree though that MD doesn't give as much attention to single player as it could [think new levels])
Last edited: